Hit or Miss

Product Notes

The SOUND: "Nick Cave meets No-Wave" - San Francisco Chronicle"a house party of an unusually artistic coterie" - CMJ "songs of rock and roll poetry celebrating the debauched, the broken, the drunken and the misfitting... Gaines is a poet in the same sense that Exene or Lou Reed is a poet: as much about an attitude and a stance as about specific words and notes struck." PopMatters The STORY: A 3am channel-surfing escapade brought Darren Gaines to the movie The Ice Storm just as Sigorney Weaver reached her hand into the bowl and drew out the young man's keys. He bought a fish bowl the next day... wrote out instrument names, arrangements, recording ideas, names of toys and musicians, anything and everything that could inspire him... placed them all in the bowl and reached for his first draw... "No Drums." He smiled. His Burroughs-esq technique spawned Hit or Miss, the debut album of The Key Party. Hit or Miss was named Album of the Day by CMJ, Download of the Week in the San Francisco Chronicle and praised as a "Tom Waits style one man junkyard army from New York" by the LA Weekly. For their new record My Blacks Don't Match (Produced by Ken Rich - Joseph Arthur, Our Shadows Will Remain ) Gaines willed the word "Drums" back into the fishbowl and, for good measure, tossed in slips that included phrases like brass riffs from TV theme songs, sitcoms and cartoons. The themes of broken, misfitting lives and New York City street hassle remain: while making My Blacks Don't Match, Gaines found himself laid off, evicted by treacherous landlords, and moved to Brooklyn (where he feels akin to an ex-pat) but the musical evolution is clear from the first horn salvo of the opening track. "... The horn accompaniment sounds like he's slapping around Henry Mancini for some kicks." itsnotthebandihateitstheirfans.blogspot. With co-conspirator Sara Syms now entrenched as a full time member of The Key Party, Gaines has been freed to let his songs find new avenues. Using Syms breathy vocals to counter his "voice of tattered velvet that falls between Tom Waits and Steve Wynn" (PopMatters) Gaines' songs have evolved into subversive lounge songs, one part punk one part jazz. Gaines says, "My Blacks Don't Match is the record I've been trying to make since I was 10." To CONTACT: info1@thekeypartynyc.com - myspace.com/thekeypartynyc.

The SOUND: "Nick Cave meets No-Wave" - San Francisco Chronicle"a house party of an unusually artistic coterie" - CMJ "songs of rock and roll poetry celebrating the debauched, the broken, the drunken and the misfitting... Gaines is a poet in the same sense that Exene or Lou Reed is a poet: as much about an attitude and a stance as about specific words and notes struck." PopMatters The STORY: A 3am channel-surfing escapade brought Darren Gaines to the movie The Ice Storm just as Sigorney Weaver reached her hand into the bowl and drew out the young man's keys. He bought a fish bowl the next day... wrote out instrument names, arrangements, recording ideas, names of toys and musicians, anything and everything that could inspire him... placed them all in the bowl and reached for his first draw... "No Drums." He smiled. His Burroughs-esq technique spawned Hit or Miss, the debut album of The Key Party. Hit or Miss was named Album of the Day by CMJ, Download of the Week in the San Francisco Chronicle and praised as a "Tom Waits style one man junkyard army from New York" by the LA Weekly. For their new record My Blacks Don't Match (Produced by Ken Rich - Joseph Arthur, Our Shadows Will Remain ) Gaines willed the word "Drums" back into the fishbowl and, for good measure, tossed in slips that included phrases like brass riffs from TV theme songs, sitcoms and cartoons. The themes of broken, misfitting lives and New York City street hassle remain: while making My Blacks Don't Match, Gaines found himself laid off, evicted by treacherous landlords, and moved to Brooklyn (where he feels akin to an ex-pat) but the musical evolution is clear from the first horn salvo of the opening track. "... The horn accompaniment sounds like he's slapping around Henry Mancini for some kicks." itsnotthebandihateitstheirfans.blogspot. With co-conspirator Sara Syms now entrenched as a full time member of The Key Party, Gaines has been freed to let his songs find new avenues. Using Syms breathy vocals to counter his "voice of tattered velvet that falls between Tom Waits and Steve Wynn" (PopMatters) Gaines' songs have evolved into subversive lounge songs, one part punk one part jazz. Gaines says, "My Blacks Don't Match is the record I've been trying to make since I was 10." To CONTACT: info1@thekeypartynyc.com - myspace.com/thekeypartynyc.